Friday, 21 May 2004

Something to HUD

Feds Withholding Info on Lead-Contaminated Public Housing

If the comments of a senior federal housing official, captured on videotape, are to be believed, the government is withholding information on public-housing sites around the country that are contaminated by lead paint. Joseph Smith, deputy director of the Office of Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, told a group of top managers that he had a list of some 16,500 sites, including many public-housing projects, where children had been diagnosed with lead poisoning. He said he had planned to issue a press release on the list, but was discouraged by the HUD secretary's staff. Smith's remarks were captured on videotape and broadcast to HUD offices around the country. Since then, as one might imagine, federal officials have been backpedaling furiously. HUD spokesperson Brian Sullivan said the idea that the department is withholding information is "absolutely and totally false," but he said the list of contaminated sites cannot be made public at this time, and he was not sure when it could be.

Dr. Jekyll and Formaldehyde

EPA Develops Industry-Friendly Wood-Products Regulation

How does the song go? "It's all the same; only the names have changed." This time around, it's the wood-products industry. Since 2002, the U.S. EPA has been under court order to develop a regulation governing formaldehyde emissions from wood-products facilities. Formaldehyde is used as a binding agent in pressed-wood products; it is also classified as a probable human carcinogen, though the science remains in dispute. In writing the reg issued earlier this year, the EPA used a risk-assessment model developed by a think tank funded by the chemical industry, and also employed an unorthodox legal strategy suggested by a timber-industry lawyer. Top EPA officials with direct ties to the chemical and timber industries ushered the regulation through over objections from enviros and long-time enforcement officials. The result is a rule that disregards major recent studies tying formaldehyde exposure to cancer risk and saves the wood-products industry -- a major contributor to the Republican Party -- hundreds of millions of dollars. Hum along if you know the tune ...

A Different Kind of Giant Sucking Sound

China Hoovering the World's Raw Materials

China is huge, its economy is exploding, and its consequent hunger for resources is having profound effects on the world's economy and environment. Sure, you've heard it before, but trust us -- it's a big deal. Consider: According to the country's own statistics, it consumed half of the world's cement production last year, one-third of its steel, nearly one-fourth of its copper, and one-fifth of its aluminum. China is now the world's second-largest importer of oil, after the U.S. Its demand for resources has driven the price of shipping freight through the roof, and because its ports and other ports around the world haven't expanded fast enough to keep pace with China's resource demands, some one-fifth of the world's bulk freighters are tied up at any one time, essentially waiting in line to load and unload cargo. Get used to it: China will be topping economic and environmental headlines for years to come.

Do Good

Take Action to Defend the Scientific Process

An alliance of prominent scientists has accused the Bush administration of distorting and interfering with science on a wide variety of issues, including many related to the environment and human health. The scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates and 19 recipients of the National Medal of Science, say the Bushies have censored reports on climate change and other problems, stacked federal scientific advisory panels with people who share their (often controversial) views, and more. Call on your senators and representatives to step in and restore scientific integrity to the policy-making process.

New Spitz Review

Four Northeast States Sue Pennsylvania Power Company

In the latest skirmish over the new-source review provisions of the Clean Air Act, four Northeastern states have announced their intention to sue a Pennsylvania power company over emissions they say are drifting across state lines to worsen smog and cause respiratory problems. The Bush administration announced in November that it would abandon some 50 investigations of polluting facilities; New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer then requested comprehensive files from the U.S. EPA and vowed to press forward where the feds had left off. He is joined by state officials from Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania in this suit against Pennsylvania-based Allegheny Energy, which operates five coal-fired power plants in West Virginia. "From Day 1, the Bush administration has tried to eviscerate and undercut the Clean Air Act," Spitzer said. "We at the state level will fulfill the critical policy mission of ensuring that the air we breathe is clean."

Home Run

California Considers Innovative New Enviro Laws

Speaking of states picking up balls the feds are dropping: A pair of intriguing new eco-friendly bills are on the table in California. The first, recently approved by the state Senate, would mandate that an as-yet-undetermined percentage of new single-family homes built in developments of 25 homes or more be equipped with solar panels. Another bill just approved by the state Assembly and sent to the Senate would require that decals affixed to new cars show the amount of greenhouse gases the cars would produce, giving would-be buyers info on the relative eco-friendliness of various models. Yet another state-level initiative -- which isn't in California, but we shoehorned it in here anyway because we think it's nifty -- was proposed by Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D); it would institute a "green holiday" during which consumers could purchase energy-efficient products free of the state's sales tax.